Tuesday, February 20, 2007

St. Peter

An encaustic painting from the 6th ( yes, that's 6th ) century, at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mt. Sinai. The portrayals of St. Peter as looking like this, and of St. Paul as rather thin, bald, and with a longer, slightly pointed beard, were already at least a few hundred years old when this was made. It just about has to be the result of earlier paintings made from life or recent memory.

3 comments:

Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) said...

Jeffrey,

Now that is a significant find!

Amazing how well preserved it is too.

Jeffrey Smith said...

St. Catherine's was pretty much left alone for more than a millenium. The place is full of things like this.

Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) said...

An undisturbed jewel!